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AniMat's Reviews - Hotel Transylvania 2
AniMat's Reviews - Hotel Transylvania 2 is an episode of AniMat's Reviews and the seventh episode of Season 2015. Like the first one, AniMat proves to not be a fan of this sequel, criticizing the animation, story and characters, but notes that while it is a bad movie, it's not as bad as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 and Jack and Jill, and recommends to fans of the first one to watch it as a DVD rental rather than going to the cinemas. He ends the review by saying that one day, Sony Pictures Animation could improve, but with the release of The Emoji Movie, it's likely not going to happen soon, and gives this film the AniMat Seal of Garbage and a score of 4/10. Transcript Scene 1: Back to Sony Pictures Animation AniMat (vo): Hotel Transylvania 2. Yes folks, it is time that we return to the animation studio in which one of their former directors (Phil Lord) called it a place where "artists have been treated like paper and it's too hard to do great work there". Because of their infamously poor treatment to their staff, movies that have failed again and again to even be among the ranks of actual successful animated features and a history of terrible business decisions made by some of the most incompetent people in the industry, Sony Pictures Animation has earned the grand reputation of both the embarrassment and the laughingstock of the animation industry where no self-respecting director would ever want to associate themselves with. But if I may take a moment to look into the first Hotel Transylvania, I will confess that maybe I was a little too harsh on it. I will admit that it did do some things right like some of the jokes are really funny, the concept sounds engaging and this is possibly Adam Sandler's best performance in recent years. But do I regret giving it the AniMat's Seal of Garbage? No. Despite what it did right, it's not enough to save itself from being a badly made generic kids film. The writing is horrendously lazy, the animation is childishly weak and one of the main characters is as enjoyable and likable as a doctor telling you that you have cancer and then proceeds to laugh at you for it. It technically is the best film that Sandler and Sony Animation made in recent years, but then again, you can make almost any movie look good (Shows posters from Sony Pictures films) compared to these atrocities. So not only that they released not only their third (shows posters for Smurfs 2, Cloudy 2 and Hotel Transylvania 2) sequel in a row, but the third sequel to the last three movies (shows posters for Cloudy 1, The Smurfs and Hotel Transylvania) they made themselves because apparently you can run an animation studio without any sort of creativity or effort. Well, let's be honest, how bad is the damage here? Let's find out. Scene 2: The Story AniMat (vo): In my review of the first movie, I mentioned one of its big problems is that instead of acting like a movie as it should, it thinks that it's a Saturday morning cartoon. In the sequel, this has not changed one bit; the entire story simply revolves around Drac trying to make his grandson a vampire and that's pretty much it. The most surprising part of it is how much filler can this movie shove in so that it can make the 90 minute mark. This is the kind of story you normally find, again, in a cartoon. Because of this, there are scenes that would feel like they would drag, it would accomplish absolutely nothing to progress the story. What's even worse is how there are scenes that are literally just filler and have nothing to do with the main plot. Seriously, there are no other reasons why it would constantly cut to Mavis and Johnny doing absolutely nothing but pointless gags in California. It doesn't help either how the story is stupidly predictable and how they try to enforce the moral of "we love you just the way you are" is blatantly obvious. But that's not the only problem it kept; remember how in the first movie it desperately tries to be cool and hip with the young crowd including playing Sexy and I Know It twice? That too is still intact, mostly through gags hoping audiences would find relatable like her Facebook review on Yelp, selfies, dealing with touchscreen phones, they're like one step away from doing the whip- (Cuts to an event at a mall where people in Hotel Transylvania costumes are performing the Whip Nae Nae) AniMat (vo): You know, I want to be shocked at this, but after all the stupid things I've seen Sony do, I just feel permanently unfazed at whatever they do. However, you might be watching this review and wonder the big question regarding this film that made some people like the first: is it at least funny? Well, I'd say about 20 percent of the time. I'll admit, there are those rare occasions that it did make me laugh and a bit of chuckles were thrown here and there too, but most of them just consist of low brow cartoon humor that doesn't really work especially when it's so obvious how they're meant as filler and resort to doing Family Guy style gags. Yes it's Hotel Transylvania, but remember that it is still a recent Adam Sandler film, you won't find any comedy gold here. The story does feel like a Hotel Transylvania movie all with the same level of bad writing and problems that come with it. Scene 3: The Animation AniMat (vo): Now it's time for the fun part of the review: looking at Sony's signature animation where even their own animators are getting sick and tired of the stupidity that they always pull off. Regarding Hotel Transylvania, I admit that it's not the worst animation I've seen and it does hit a few notes right. At least it's not as intelligence insulting or effortlessly put together like they did with the junk that are the Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movies, although the backgrounds are not that impressive, I mean, they just look rather average. Some of the designs especially with the monsters are actually pretty creative and sometimes colorful. (Cuts to a monster about to sit on a toilet and it explodes from beneath him.) AniMat (vo): But again, that's only with some. Others look simplified and cartoonish to the point that it looks more unprofessional for an animated film and belongs more on a small budget TV show. And then you have the visual's biggest problem: the character animation. I have no idea why this quote-unquote "style" has to even exist in a movie, but it feels like Genndy Tartakovsky came out of Cartoon Network thinking that stuff like Dexter's Lab is the standard quality of all animation and that it can be implemented in things like computer animated features when it couldn't be further from the truth. Those are meant to look simple and cheap to keep production costs low, yet now that you don't have any limits, you still continue the cheap cartoony look. Why? These are the kind of decisions that keep animation away from being considered a medium instead of a kid genre. I mean, look at Inside Out, it does have its cartoony moments, but they are subtle; the overall movements are still smooth with a certain finesse that makes it a considered animation for a movie. You need to hint out the cartoony, not shove it in the audience's face where it feels distracting and annoying. I'm not saying this to bash Genndy at all, I want to help the guy. Dude, if you want to make more movies, then I highly recommend reading The Animator's Survival Kit. Trust me, you need it. Admittedly, it's not bottom-of-the-barrel bad like the Cloudy films, but there's still a serious amount of work that needs to be done here. Scene 4: The Characters AniMat (vo): The Drac pack is back, yet seeing their return is not all that great. With the script that's so focused on delivering gags than actually having a story, it also means that it left out any sort of development for the characters, in fact, they even left out any sort of character or purpose in them. Most of these characters like Drac's friends are only there for gag purposes, not even ones contributing to the plot. Invisible Man: How about how hot mine is? The Mummy: You...have a date? Invisible Man: Yeah. She's invisible, that's why you can't see her. Frankenstein: Oh, right, this is the one from (finger quotes) Canada. AniMat (vo): Even Dracula himself feels pretty one-dimensional by still retaining his caring father persona, but I wouldn't blame him, I mean, he does have to take care of his grandson, his daughter, the hotel, the writing and the entire movie to the point that this can barely be considered Genndy's movie. Then there's Mavis who's now the overprotective mother on vacation, yet still holds her blandness and Johnny, well, I guess the movie kept him so that the Happy Madison fans could find someone to relate to. As for any of the new characters, yeah, they contribute as much as the recurring ones, being little to nothing. First, there's Dennis, the one that looks like a disfigured version of the triplets from Brave who has absolutely no personality whatsoever and is only there to give the movie something to do instead of slack off. He is also there so that the easily distracted audiences would think that he's cute instead of realizing how bad the writing is. Johnny's parents are fascinating by how forgettable they are and Bobby is just there for making visual gags and not speak at all which is probably why he's the best character in the movie. And then there's Dracula's dad, Vlad played by the legendary Mel Brooks who only appears at the very end with little dialogue and maybe to do two things to move the story. Well, what do you expect? That they would make him a more prominent character? Of course not, that would be too smart for Sony to do. Admittedly, the characters are not as hateable as Johnny in the first film, they just suffer a case of bad writing. Scene 5: Verdict AniMat (vo): I'll give it this: it's not the level of badness of Jack and Jill or Cloudy 2, but with the fact that it is an Adam Sandler movie and a Sony Pictures Animation film, it doesn't change that it's still a bad movie. It tries so hard to be a cartoon that it completely forgot that it's a movie, resulting it with weak cartoony animation and even weaker writing, where the story and characters are only interested in doing gags that rarely deliver the laughs. I would simply recommend to just not watch it except to use it as a way to distract the kids during the Halloween time, but if you really are a fan of the first one, it's probably best to just wait until you can either rent it or watch it on Netflix or something. It's one of those movies that's better to see for yourself at home instead of spending your effort and money to go watch it in theaters. But with all the crazy slamming I've done to Sony Animation in this review, maybe one day they'll prove me wrong. Maybe there will be a time when they'll release a movie that's more than just a dumb cartoon and would have an engaging concept that everybody can enjoy, even me. They must have something good in the works, right? (Shows announcement for The Emoji Movie) AniMat (vo): Maybe someday, but it certainly ain't gonna happen anytime soon. Ratings * Story: 3/10 * Animation: 5/10 * Characters: 4/10 * Overall: 4/10 Category:Underrated AniMat Reviews